Re-edit all manuscripts — Poems by Sindhuri Rao

This time, let us tell our girls
stories about fairytales, policies and politics.
Let her choose to be a Sita, a Mary, a Cinderella,
but do remind her, she comes from the same skin as Kali,
Nikhumbila and Durga too.

This time, tell her to shelter choices selfishly,
decapitate armed fears on streets,
hoard portable daggers along lipsticks in backpacks,
swap saplings of poison for punches,
grow big tongues, outspoke,
pin them out on foreheads with no apologies.
Warn her not about borders of visible bra strips;
Instead, broadcast about anonymous ghosts,
seasonal termites, predator skulls behind
oleander masks, rancid virtues.

As before, do not coronate her with classist narratives.
Tell her over and over
to give up on insecurities instead of her identity.
Gift her fertile wisdom of all great gods
so, if she ever loses everything,
she is her shrine; she can always come back to.

Not growing her womb, finding her tribe,
marching against threats,
cursing lovers, messy tampons on sheets,
a beer in hand, swinging fiddles on dance floors,
hosting sisterhood,
occupied uterus, revolting Pavlovian sacrifices,
spinning muslin sundresses
in work boots is all womanhood.

Read gospels about her forebearers,
the grandmothers, the sisters, the mothers,
how far their clan reigned each time
against fortified maneuvers, this
world has made them go through.
Remind her when hinged
midway with an unwelcomed lecher,
She is a werewolf,
Her fingers can cut hazard into halves,
Hunt and hang sternums in queues altogether through.

This time,
Let no earthly articles inhabit her spine.
Nor we metamorphose into gluttons
to devour her pride.
So, we perhaps not gather for another candlelight procession
On footmarks of her annihilation
Ever and again!

Perhaps
you will forget the person,
the one that left you halfway
with broken shards of whys’ and how’s.
As the days pass by
maybe,
you will eventually love them less,
a little less.
You will not debate with the end anymore.
Your heart will accept the hurt-The lost war.
You will no longer scream at your grief,
you’ll stop chasing their name, now a pale noun.
You will hide in collected dusk of silence; not forever.
Come what may,
you will not be the same person anymore - Bold truth
Loving the world may not be like before,
it may not be a fresh start, certainly,
but you will heal slowly and wisely.
So, you can someday carry this
Unfinished story of yours
not as a burden
but as an extension of yourself!

I watched God sitting on my grandmother’s bed
the day she left
singing yodels with sky and loons carefree.

The other day, back at home
he was on the backseat of my 3-year-old son
enjoying his first cycle ride
in our yard with a chuckling chin.

On Sunday, a mid-Autumn
he was brunching pomegranates in a pleated skirt,
along with my girlfriends and me.

But last night, as I was watching news
of a woman raped
with hips broken, Knuckles bent, eyes bleeding

He went quiet, ate leftover greens
went into his room
and never woke up the next morning!